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There are two types of people in the world: those who spend the weeks prior to Record Store Day obsessively checking websites and compiling lists of special-edition red- or green-coloured singles or LPs for which they will happily pay three times what anyone else would think is tolerable (and then only after shivering on the sidewalk in an early-morning lineup), and those for whom this Saturday is known only as April 19.

For the latter, Record Store Day was started in 2007 for, as its founders put it, “the people who make up the world of the record store — the staff, the customers and the artists — to come together and celebrate the unique culture of a record store and the special role these independently owned stores play in their communities.”

For the former, you poor, poor, pitiful souls. (But if you spot a vaguely embarrassed character on the sidewalk in dark glasses and perhaps a floppy hat, stop and say hi.)

Now celebrated around the world, from Britain, the U.S. and Mexico to Australia, Canada and Japan, it will also unfold Saturday in 24 stores across Toronto. (Read the full list at bit.ly/vinylTO.) These stores will stock exclusive vinyl editions of several hundred titles by everyone from ABBA and Katy Perry to Ice-T and Xiu Xiu, plus a few Canadian exclusives (including Blue Rodeo, Gordon Lightfoot and Spirit of the West).

You know an event is here to stay when its participants don’t just love it or hate it, but do both at the same time.

Here, for instance, is a typically conflicted comment about last year’s RSD: “I like the idea, but my idea of fun in a record store is taking an hour or so to slowly flip through all the used bins rather than wait in a line and grab a handful of expensive stuff in fear that I’ll never see it again.”

“So on April 21st, 2012, you should go to your local record store and see a live band play and have a great time. Then on April 28th, 2012, go back to that record store and buy more records. Don’t flip your lid because you didn’t get the limited edition Third Man Records LP or the new Lemuria 7-inch, but be happy because you’re lucky enough to have a local record store to support.”

And here’s one of our favourites, written even before this year’s event has taken place: “When One Direction have an RSD release, you know it’s the beginning of the end.”

One of the main beefs — and they come not just from customers but stakeholders such as store ownersand distributors — is the infuriating tendency for many of the most sought-after items to appear on eBay within minutes after stores open — hell, sometimes even before — and at grossly inflated prices.

“We spend the weeks before Record Store Day every year looking at the listings on eBay, and investigating them,” Carrie Colliton, co-founder of Record Store Day, emailed us after we raised the issue.

“Ninety-nine percent of the time, we find that the listing is someone who does not have the release in their hands, but plans to go out on Record Store Day, attempt to buy it and then fill the order. To us, this is fraudulent behaviour since you’re selling something you don’t have and can’t guarantee you’ll have, and we encourage people to report such listings to eBay.”

After Record Store Day is over, Colliton acknowledges, “neither we nor the stores have control of what a customer does with a release they buy.

“It can seem unfair to someone who doesn’t get the release they are looking for, but the limited nature of the releases contributes to their special character, and is a big part of the buzz that the Day gets, and that helps us with our ultimate mission, which is to promote the brick and mortar record stores, and drive people to them.”

If that last part pans out — and some still say it’s a big “if” — that makes RSD easy to love. Then again, if you spot a vaguely embarrassed character in dark glasses and a floppy hat on the day after Record Store Day, stop and say hi.

THE VINYL COUNTDOWN: When it comes to Record Store Day releases, one way to gauge what’s most in-demand is by what resellers on eBay are betting will bring them the most return for their speculative buck.

In the days before the event, those prices were topping out at an outrageous $119.99 for each of two double-vinyl albums by rock-funk-rap band 311 (Evolver and 311) and a compilation by Cleveland punk pioneers The Pagans.

Optimistically listed at $99.99 were a new 7-inch single by Ray Lamontagne and Green Day’s collection of 2012 demos, Demolicious — on cassette.

Canadian exclusives are relatively thin, but include a handsomely packaged two-record edition of Weightless by guitarist extraordinaire Matt Andersen, 12-inch singles by Sam Roberts Band and The Darcys, Gordon Lightfoot’s Sundown, and a two-coloured-LP set of Blue Rodeo’s Diamond Mine.

RETRO/ACTIVE: The first five seconds of Echo and the Bunnymen’s “Market Town” include a playful nod to “The Cutter,” which arguably lends extra credence to Ian McCulloch’s routine boast that their next album harkens directly back to their heyday. Due out June 3 here but April 28 in the U.K., Meteorites is produced by Youth, whose varied resume (The Verve, The Futureheads, Paul McCartney’s side project The Fireman) peeks out from every bar of this ambitious 7:40 single.

NEXT YEAR’S MODEL: Damien Rice, Lisa Hannigan, and Bell X1 are the reference points for Printer Clips, whose driving force is Paul Noonan, frontman for the aforementioned Bell X1, a.k.a. Ireland’s second-biggest band. Comprising songs written by Noonan and sung with female duet partners — among them Amy Millan, Joan As Police Woman, and Aussie luminary Julia Stone — it has now spawned a digital-only EP, The Left Sleeve. Included is the quietly provocative “Apparatchik,” featuring Hannigan, who used to sing with Rice, who, in turn, used to play in a band with Noonan.

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